Yesterday, Anchorage Assembly Chair Christopher Constant joined U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan in a call with President Biden's Cabinet Member, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge to discuss the HUD Continuum of Care funding formula and Anchorage's request for more equitable federal funding to address its homelessness crisis. During the call, Senator Sullivan and Chair Constant reissued an invitation to Secretary Fudge to visit Alaska and see the issues in person.
At the close of the meeting, Chair Constant issued the following statement:
The biggest barrier preventing Anchorage from addressing its homelessness crisis is a lack of funding. Skyrocketing national housing costs, a lack of affordable rentals, a global mental health crisis, and state and national funding patterns have left Anchorage trying to combat national problems using only local resources.
We recently discovered that the Municipality of Anchorage is not receiving an equitable share of federal funding to address our growing homelessness issue due to the outdated HUD Continuum of Care funding formula.
Currently, the formula distributes federal Continuum of Care funds based on cities' overall population as opposed to the population of people actually experiencing homelessness. In 2022, Anchorage reported a Point in Time Count of 1,494 Overall Homeless, roughly equivalent to Fort Worth, Texas's report of 1,665 and Baltimore, Maryland's 1,597. Yet, in that same year, Anchorage received just over $4 million in Continuum of Care funds, where Fort Worth received nearly $16 million and Baltimore, over $26 million.
After implementing the Homelessness Information Management System (HMIS) we determined that we have more than 3000 people unhoused in Anchorage; closer in comparison to Houston TX which receives more than $46,000,000 annually.
Anchorage has demonstrated our commitment to ending homelessness and now we need our state and federal partners to step in with their share of the solution.
The Municipality has made considerable investments in housing and homelessness in recent years through the newly enacted alcohol sales tax and through significant housing investments with Anchorage's CARES Act and ARPA funding. Since taking on a more active role in the community's homelessness prevention response in 2017, the Assembly has appropriated over $100 million to support housing programs, with $30M going to mortgage and rental relief during the pandemic and over $50M going to rehabilitate rental units and fund nonprofit partners to build new housing units. Additionally, ongoing efforts to create an atmosphere conducive to development of affordable and attainable housing have resulted in multiple new tax incentives and comprehensive code changes.
This meeting with Secretary Fudge was the first step toward achieving the goal of more equitable federal funding for homelessness in Anchorage, and I'm pleased to report that she understands the issue and committed to personally working with her staff to do what is within her power to help Anchorage and Alaska.
I personally want to thank Senator Sullivan and his staff, as well as the rest of Alaska's Congressional Delegation, for recognizing the importance and urgency of this issue and for working hard on behalf of Anchorage to secure an equitable share of federal resources to reduce homelessness in our community.
The Anchorage Assembly and Mayor Bronson unanimously passed a resolution on May 9 asking for state and federal help on homelessness funding, which was sent to Secretary Fudge, Governor Dunleavy and the Alaska Congressional Delegation. The call with Secretary Fudge was set up by Senator Sullivan in response to that resolution.
The letter and additional information on the Anchorage Assembly's work to combat homelessness can be found on the Assembly's Focus on Homelessness webpage.
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Contact:
Christopher Constant | Assembly Chair, christopher.constant@anchorageak.gov